


free to be me

by orphan_account



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 20:43:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4579347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“Did you steal the last ding dong?” She points an accusing finger at him. His shoulders hunch up a little. Jesus, the doll can’t be any more than five foot six and here she is <b>pointing a finger at an ex-HYDRA ghost operative.</b></em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Talk about fucking balls.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“No?” James says, more from self-preservation than anything. He tries to discreetly shove the empty packet down the side of the couch.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	free to be me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doctorenterprise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorenterprise/gifts).



#  _**FREE TO BE ME** _

 

It’s weird, walking the monochromatic halls of what has been and what once was. SHIELD is an amalgam of things that James - not Bucky, he thinks quietly, he is no longer Bucky just as he is no longer  _Asset_  or  _the Winter Soldier_  - fears and will fight for.

It’s been a week since he’s come to SHIELD, beaten and battered, memory more holes than actual memories. He finds it hard sometimes, he’ll stumble over words and sentences that he knows he knows, will sometimes find himself blanking out at inopportune moments. It’s frustrating.

What’s also frustrating, is how they avoid him. James can’t fault them, he’s been debriefed on what the Asset had done, what  _he_  had done, because there was no doubt about it that the things he’d read about had been done by _his_  hands, no point in skipping around it.

It helps him in away realize that though his hands had been the weapon, he himself had been a victim of HYDRA’s machinations.

Therapy is fucking  _wild_ , James thinks.

But the avoidance gets annoying after a while, when he can’t sleep because all he dreams of is ice and water smothering his nose, of metal encroaching his arm and blood on the snow. He dreams of violence and blood and metal and it makes him think that this is what he is now, merely blood of the machinery of that HYDRA crafted him into.

He’ll tear them apart with his bare hands if he has too, tear their throats out, over and over, with his teeth and swallow the acid blood.

He dreams about it at night.

So no one can complain that he sits in the small rec room just off the side of his small room, watching the grey of the wall slowly slip into soft gold as the sun seats through the bulletproof windows.

(Sometimes, he’s not sure whether it’s to keep James in or keep something out.

Maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s neihter.

At least they do comfy couches.)

He tips his head back onto the lip of the couch, legs stretched out and hair scraped away from his face. One of the first thing he’d done when he’d dragged himself into the new SHIELD, and saw Coulson was take a shaver to his head.

He’d watched clumps of hair fall from his head and onto the floor and felt a certain kind of liberation. It felt like he was shredding HYDRA away, even with this one rebellion.

It’s grown out now, no longer just a peach fuzz but a buzz cut just a little longer than traditional. He likes it, likes to shove his hand over the peach with his flesh hand. It makes him feel human.

He’s lucky, though. He knows he is.

He’s lucky that Coulson took him in and didn’t turn him away or fuck, shoot him on sight. He’d wondered about that, sat on the cot in his room that was too soft and too big that he often ended up sleeping on the floor.

He’d heard about Coulsons team, how a girl, the one the handlers and agents, called Skye, had raged when she’d found out they wanted to put him in a container  _like an animal_ , he’d been told.

He’d also been told that the quakes of the earth had also been her doing.

He wonders if that makes her any more human than him. Wonders how she gained her powers, wondered how she kept from blowing all of them sky high.

He finds he wonders about a lot of things these days. Like his memory isn’t quite full enough.

So he hides himself away, regrouping himself and trying to encourage himself of the fact that he won’t be made to feel lesser here, stuffing his face full of twinkies and ding dong’s and trying not to laugh at the names. It’s hard, though, when people so easily see him and turn in completely the wrong direction.

It’s hard, especially when he hears word of Steve,  _his mission a voice says in the back of his head_ , and finds just how shit the world is going around them all and James remembers enough to know that Steve is a fucking shit head with no preservation skills.

“’Takin’ all the stupid with you’ fuckin’ punk,” He snarls beneath his breath and he sometimes doesn’t even realize he’s remembered things he shouldn’t.

“You do realize, you shouldn’t talk to yourself right?” Someone says at the door and James snorts. 

“Can’t get any crazier than what I already am,” He says. The woman - a girl really - moves from the shadow, and he crunches an empty packet of dingdongs in his metal hand.

The girl, Skye he remembers hearing her being called in the halls, the one who’d rallied at Coulson until Coulson had apparently given up from sheer exhaustion, opens her mouth to say something before her eyes zero in on the crumpled pack.

“ _You_ ,” She growls. She plants her hands on her hips, skin glowing in the golden light of the setting sun. Her hair is swept back in a loose bun on top of her head. She looks like she should be sleeping, James thinks, eyes ringed with bruises and plaid shirt hanging from her slim shoulders.

“Me,” James says lazily. If his voice is hoarse and rusty, Skye doesn’t say anything. 

“Did you steal the last ding dong?” She points an accusing finger at him. His shoulders hunch up a little. Jesus, the doll can’t be any more than five foot six and here she is  _pointing a finger at an ex-HYDRA ghost operative_.

Talk about fucking balls.

“No?” James says, more from self-preservation than anything. He tries to discreetly shove the empty packet down the side of the couch.

“Liar,” She sings, and does a complete one-eighty in terms of attitude that James is left a little startled, staring up at how she just plops herself down next to him, tiny compared to him, with a remote in hand. “It’s fine anyway, AC always gets them in bulk because otherwise the whole of SHIELD may just go on strike if he didn’t,”

“Okay?” He says, frozen in the act of shoving the packaging down the couch side.

Skye looks over at him, lips twisted into a amuses smirk.

“Unfreeze your tits,” She advises, and James is so taken aback he chokes on his laugh. “It’s fine, honest,” 

She then turns back around to the television and proceeds to put on the most mind-numbing program James has ever seen.

At least her cuteness and attitude makes up for the abysmal lack of taste in television shows.

(Two weeks later, Skye has James Buchanan Barnes hooked on America’s Next Top Model.

Coulson near enough faints.)


End file.
